Op Ed: Greenwich Didn’t Vote for This

by Erik Ephrim

There’s a moment in every town when residents realize that something has changed — not loudly, not ceremonially, but quietly and permanently. It usually doesn’t come with a referendum. It comes with a notice in the mail, a fine, a camera pole on the corner, or a conversation that starts with, “Did you know they’re ticketing now?”

That’s where Greenwich is.

First Selectman Fred Camillo says residents are upset about the new school-zone speed cameras. Of course they are. People don’t like being fined by machines they didn’t vote for, on roads they’ve driven for decades, under a system they never debated. But beneath the frustration is something deeper: a sense that the town crossed a line without ever asking permission.

Greenwich didn’t ask residents if they wanted automated enforcement. It didn’t hold a referendum. It didn’t run a public impact study. It didn’t publish diversion modeling. It didn’t host town halls about neighborhood effects. It simply installed infrastructure and told people to adjust.

That’s not how this town usually works.

And now we’re seeing the predictable response. Drivers are rerouting. Side streets are filling up. Navigation apps are rewriting the daily map of Greenwich. Neighborhoods that once felt tucked away are becoming arteries. Noise rises. Wear rises. Stress rises. And families who moved here for a certain quality of life are starting to feel like they’re living in someone else’s traffic plan.

Read the rest.